In the article, the institutional context is analyzed, within which Russian political science exists at the contemporary stage of its development. Science in general and political science in particular are regarded as a social institution and as a cultural phenomenon, whose condition is linked inextricably with the processes unfolding within society and within state. A number of institutional factors influencing practices of scientific enterprise have been identified - formal norms and informal rules according to which science functions; professional standards; the character of relationship between science and state, as well as between science and society; structures of scientific community’s self-organization; relations with international science. The specifics of these factors’ impact in the case of Russian political science is demonstrated.

The paper provides an attempt to test empirically Samuel Huntington's well-known thesis about the relationship between democracy and political science, based on data, obtained from a survey «Professionalization and Social Impact of European Political Science» (ProSEPS) conducted among political scientists from 39 countries. The authors find significant relationships between the level of democracy and some parameters of political science; primarily, with the presence of political science in public field. In the final part of the work, hypotheses are put forward about other possible explanations of country differences in the development of political science.

The article considers two related topics. Firstly, it analyzes an issue of the structure of political science, the possibility of structuring it as academic, fundamental and applied science, as well as a more practical area, which is political science expert knowledge. Secondly, this is a problem of the relationship between experts and expertise customers. The main customer of such examination is a state in all its various manifestations. At present, however, expertise clients are not only government agencies, but also a variety of business structures and non-profit organizations. The article also raises a question of the fundamental possibility of political science experts to give an objective normative assessment of actions of public policy actors and other problems that arise when considering programs and projects.

The article focuses on professional systems of scientific journal data and ratings (Russian informational system RSCI, WoS and Scopus). It analyses their analytical tools and indicators. The authors highlight a number of problems related to a probable influence of the instruments and indicators on evaluation of the journals and the state of political science in general. Some solutions to these problems are proposed. The authors identify two tendencies in the process of institutionalization of political research. The first one is the increase of the quantity of specialized journals. The second one is an application of scientometric indicators not only for evaluation of the journals by scientists but also by administrators and managers of science and education. The article shows possibilities of scientometric and other indicators of the data bases as tools supplementing impact-factors for evaluation of the scientific journals.

The article discusses the role of youth political science organizations in the process of forming a community of political scientists from the perspective of a network approach. These organizations are institutional structures that claim to be central to the networking of young political scientists. It can be communicative brokers, which helps to form small groups on a network basis to achieve a common goal: to gain new knowledge about politics. The author presents the results of the all-Russian survey of youth political scientists in the fall of 2019. He identifies the factors of the formation and functioning of the community of youth political scientists, estimates its human, structural and relational capital. The article analyzes the potential of youth political science organizations as a subject of the formation of scientific networks, identifies significant areas of their activities. The age characteristics of the perception of youth structures are analyzed. The study showed that the work of youth political science communities in the regions is rated low. It is more dependent on the activities of universities. Youth political science organizations are perceived as student structures, most of the members are senior students. These structures help them identify with the professional community. Respondents rate the prospects of organizations very highly. The main task of such structures is by no means considered the development of scientific skills. Much more important is integration into the scientific community, expanding contacts with its representatives and creating platforms for the search and communication of supporters and like-minded people.

The subject of the article is public policy of Russian Federation in the field of development of scientific potential of higher education. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the contours of a possible concept of Russian policy in this area, that seems actual because of wide complex of internal and external factors. A fundamental approach to the study of public policy is the system-dynamic approach, which focuses on the institutional, temporal and technological foundations of policy. Its application made it possible to propose a fundamentally new format for the concept of this policy, which should contain: 1) analysis of institutional and law framework of policy; 2) characteristics of main stages of its life cycle; 3) description of technologies of interaction between state, civil society, universities and business in the process of its formation and implementation, and technologies for assessing the scientific potential of higher education. The most important theoretical result is to substantiate the importance of higher education in the processes of increment of scientific knowledge and its place in national scientific and technological system. The achievements of the authors may be used by socio-political and expert organizations aiming to participate in the processes of formation and implementation of public policy in relation to higher education.

In discussing the development of evaluation and evaluation research in this article the distinction is made between an initial and a consolidation phase. The former setting off in the late 1960 s is linked with the expansion of reform policies in which, under the conceptual influence of the related development in the USA, evaluation has been introduced as a procedure of analysis and «feedback» on goal attainment and on the effects of political programmes and measures, in part connected with the claim of a ‘scientification' of policymaking (‘experimental policies'). Due to the emergence of evaluation research as (external) ‘contractual research' the traditional research ‘landscape' shaped by university-based ‘basic' research, and the relation between the political world and the ‘scientific community' have been profoundly changed. In the ‘consolidation phase' the further development has been significantly impacted by New Public Managementnspired political and administrative modernization and the systematic evaluation required by the European Union for its structural funds. The progressive institutionalisation and professionalisation of evaluation research is evidenced by the foundation of the (German) Evaluation Society (DeGEval) in 1997 and of the (German language) Journal of Evaluation (Zeitschrift für Evaluation) in 2002.

The institutionalization of various research schools in Political Science has both its own specific features and some common factors such as academic relevance and background, formation of common spaces for professional communication, the creation of professional community. The formation of identity investigations in the Russian Political Science has been intensified the last 10 years. The authors characterize the process of development from some individual publications to the creation of common approach to the analysis of identity. They consider the set of factors contributed to this process such as the crisis of political culture concept at the same time with the rise of historical politics and memory politics research; actualization of regional studies; politization of identities, especially the ethnic one; inclusion of identity into wide public discourse. The authors analyze the role of the regional centers (universities and academic institutions) in the search of analytical tools and defining of research area. The regional centers have originality of their research (Perm, Krasnodar, Kazan, Barnaul, Yekaterinburg, Maykop, and Saint Petersburg). One of the very important institutes of identity research promotion is the Research Committee of Russian Association of Political Science on political identity. The authors use as an example of academic search regional and local identities inquiries and identity politics definition. Identity politics is defined by the Russian researchers in more wide interpretation than in the Western social sciences. It is the answer on the public and political challenge.

The article presents a systematic review of various approaches to the definition and method of studying value orientations, the connection of values and so cial action. The authors analyze the relationship between various sociodemographic groups and their value orientations. On the basis of data obtained after conducting sociological research in Russia, an analysis has been made of the relationship between respondents' value orientations and their political preferences. In addition, the most characteristic value orientations for the electorate of the most prominent modern politicians have been investigated. When using the Schwartz system, it turns out that the electorate most committed to the values of conservation and at the same time the least committed to the values of self-enhancement belongs to Sergey Baburin and Gennady Zyuganov. At the other pole one finds Ksenia Sobchak and especially Aleksei Navalny, whose supporters are characterized by both the maximum values of the index of commitment to the values of openness to change, and the maximum values of the index of commitment to the values of self-enhancement. An intermediate position is occupied by the electorate of Vladimir Putin, Gregory Yavlinsky, Dmitry Medvedev, Pavel Grudinin, Boris Titov, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but at the same time the electorate of Putin, Yavlinsky and Medvedev is inclined towards values of conservation, and the electorate of Grudinin, Titov and Zhirinovsky is towards values of openness to change. Using Inglehart system, politicians have been subdivided into two main clusters on the basis of value orientations of their electorate at the 2018 presidential elections: a class of candidates whose electorate adheres more to materialist values of survival and traditional religious values and a class whose electorate is more committed to secularrational values and postmaterialist values of self-expression.

Rapid social and political change triggered by increasing rates of modernization and globalization processes in the Middle East led to mismatch between traditional Islamic practices and nation state institutions. A pressing need for Islamic identity reconstruction within a framework of the nation states makes Arab rulers seek new «hybrid» forms of governance and regime legitimation. This paper argues that Islamist political parties may act as essential intermediaries between people’s traditional religious awareness and emerging national sentiment. Consequently, the inclusion of such parties in governing institutions serves to overcome potential conflict stem from the breakdowns of political modernization. In order to maintain this claim detailed within-case empirical analysis of Moroccan Justice and Development Party (JDP) is used. The author analyzes: (1) Moroccan territorial consolidation under the French protectorate; (2) regime strategy towards Islamist movement during the formation of political parties and (3) JDP inclusion as a «moderate Islamist party». By investigating the internal and external dimensions of JDP political participation, the author demonstrates that this Islamist party acts as a modern political institution and successfully integrates Islam into Moroccan national identity. The article concludes that moderate Islamist political parties may be viewed as the cornerstone of nation building in the contemporary Middle East.

This article analyzes the content of five youth political science communities. Discourse analysis was chosen as a method. The empirical base amounted to more than 500 posts on the social network «VKontakte». They were coded in accordance with the topic of a particular note. Firstly, each of the publications was interpreted as referring to a political or political science discourse in community. Secondly, all political science posts were divided into scientific and educational. Thirdly, the posts of education were divided into those that relate to civic educational practices and government initiatives. Amount of research we found, that all five communities has own specialization. For example, if the SMP RAPN group more focused on academic content. MOLROP concentrated on posts of informing about the possibilities to put their knowledge into practice. «Grazhdanin politolog» is the special case. The diversity of the group’s content shows that the target audience of the public page is not for only political science students or graduate students, but also for civic activists and people who are just interested in politics. It was also found that posts that provide access to the texts of famous political scientists and classics of political science are popular. This is a marker of the fact that young people have an interest in political science and communities in social networks only stimulate it and contribute to the formation of a new generation of political scientists.

The paper attempts to analyse a research university as a mechanism for the production of scientific knowledge in the form of student term papers and final qualification theses. To achieve this goal, the author turns to the traditional concepts of the sociology of science, the concept of power and the idea of an epistemic community. In empirical terms, the work is based on twenty interviews with students and lecturers of the Department of Political Science of the Higher School of Economics, as well as on the data of an online survey among students. The model of student interaction with scientific supervisor is considered as the main mechanism for the production of knowledge. It includes the consideration of the motivations and the selection criteria of the students and the advisors, the responsibilities and the mechanisms of influence, the opportunities for the early completion of the interaction and for the appellation to the external arbitration. Three interaction models with different levels of contact intensity are identified («symbiosis», «moderate assistance», «autonomy»); at the same time, the student’s choice of a communication model does not have a statistically significant relationship with the advisor’s mark, the final mark for the paper, as well as with the indicators of the academic degree, position and age group of the advisor. A network of students and lecturers is seen as an accessory mechanism for the production of knowledge, which operates on the basis of an informal consensus about the desirability of mutual assistance, even in the absence of formal incentives. At the stage of papers’ defense, there are no conflicts, which could be connected with the different methodological preferences of the participants; however, substantial differences are found that reflect the complex subdisciplinary structure of the contemporary political science. Finally, the author shows, that among three different forms of power, which are analysed in the research, the most important form is an expert power of supervisors or reviewers.